A typical bag for holding bulk material comprises two face panels, side gussets bridging and extending between side edges of the face panels, and a carry handle on one of the side gussets. Such a side-gusset bag is suitable in particular for packaging bulk goods like, for example, pet-food pellets, detergent, cat litter, deicing salt or also powdered or granular construction materials. The carry handle on the side gusset makes the side-gusset bag easy to transport even with a heavy weight.
A side-gusset bag with the features described at the outset is also known from EP 2,039,620. The carry handle assembly is formed by a strip-shaped handle loop on one of the side gussets, extending transversely to the longitudinal direction of the respective side gusset and overlapping it with its ends. The transversely extending handle loop extends through holes on the face panels in the side-gusset bag and attached to the inner surface of the respective side gusset. A comfortable handling of the side-gusset bag is possible by means of the handle loop. However, with increasing package weight there is a danger that the handle loop will cut into the carrier's hand to a certain extent, which is felt to be unpleasant with very heavy bags. The introduction of force into the bag also requires improvement in the case of heavy loads. A pour hole can be formed on the side gusset opposite the handle loop, so that then the side-gusset bag can be held by the handle loop for emptying. To control the pouring operation, the bag is lifted by the other hand.
Side-gusset bags with the features mentioned above are known from EP 1,777,167 and EP 1,792,722 [US 2008/0080794] and have a single longitudinally extending carry handle running on one side edge and to start with lying flat against the side gusset. This results in the advantage that the carry handle is integrated into the side gusset in a protected manner. However, it can be difficult for the user to grasp the handle loop, and an arching of the handle loop also leads to a corresponding deformation of the side-gusset bag. In particular with very large loads, the handling and the load distribution need further improvement.
A side-gusset bag is known from EP 1 712 482 [U.S. Pat. No. 7,866,885] that has respective handle loops attached to the face panels. Since the outer surface of the face panels is not heat-sealable and furthermore uniform force distribution is desirable, punchouts provided at the ends of the handle loops are covered on the inside of the bag by respective heat-sealable film patches. The ends of the handle loops are directly welded to these film patches. In contrast to the embodiments previously described with a carry handle on one of the side gussets, the side-gusset bag described in EP 1,712,482 B1 is handled like a conventional open carrying bag in that the handle loops cannot be used for easy emptying of the contained goods.